Frank Williams founded his team in 1977, and his team won their first race at the British Grand Prix in 1979 with Clay Regazzoni. Only one year later, Alan Jones gave Williams its first world title.
From that moment on, the team triumphed, winning world championships with Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, and his last driver’s championship in 1997 with Jacques Villeneuve.
Courtesy Formula 1
Even after suffering a horrible car crash in the south of France in 1986, which left him with tetraplegia, Williams ran the group and continued to dominate through the end of the 1990s. His result was to have him knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999. Williams’s final win was at the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain in 2014 in a surprise win for Pastor Maldonado. Then he transferred day-to-day operations to his daughter Claire.
Williams continued to be team principal until 2020 when–ahead of that season’s Italian Grand Prix–it was announced that the team would stand down to be sold to American firm Dorilton Capital, which would take over with the Williams name still in place to this day.
Despite the original group now gone, the name will continue to live on, and the team will continue to produce young talent, as it did recently with George Russell joining Mercedes as its #2 driver in 2022.
